Mistborn: The Final Empire (Mistborn #1)(164)

Kelsier chuckled. “Assuming you wanted to. Burning gold is a somewhat…. uncomfortable experience.”

Vin narrowed her eyes, then turned to look back out the window. We’ll see, she thought.

“You’re going to try it anyway, aren’t you?” Kelsier said, smiling.

Vin didn’t respond.

Kelsier sighed, reaching into his sash and pulling out a golden boxing and a ?le. “You should probably get one of these,” he said, holding up the ?le. “However, if you collect a metal yourself, burn just a tiny bit ?rst to make certain that it’s pure or alloyed correctly.”

“If it isn’t?” Vin asked.

“You’ll know,” Kelsier promised, beginning to ?le away at the coin. “Remember that headache you had from pewter dragging?”

“Yes?”

“Bad metal is worse,” Kelsier said. “Far worse. Buy your metals when you can—in every city, you’ll ?nd a small group of merchants who provide powdered metals to Allomancers. Those merchants have a vested interest in making certain that all of their metals are pure—a grumpy Mistborn with a headache isn’t exactly the kind of slighted customer one wants to deal with.” Kelsier ?nished ?ling, then collected a few ?akes of gold on a small square of cloth. He stuck one on his ?nger, then swallowed it.

“This is good,” he said, handing her the cloth. “Go ahead—just remember, burning the ninth metal is a strange experience.”

Vin nodded, suddenly feeling a bit apprehensive. You’ll never know if you don’t try it for yourself, she thought, then dumped the dustlike ?akes into her mouth. She washed them down with a bit of water from her ?ask.

A new metal reserve appeared within her—unfamiliar and different from the nine she knew. She looked up at Kelsier, took a breath, and burned gold.

She was in two places at once. She could see herself, and she could see herself.

One of her was a strange woman, changed and transformed from the girl she had always been. That girl had been careful and cautious—a girl who would never burn an unfamiliar metal based solely on the word of one man. This woman was foolish; she had forgotten many of the things that had let her survive so long. She drank from cups prepared by others. She fraternized with strangers. She didn’t keep track of the people around her. She was still far more careful than most people, but she had lost so much.

The other her was something she had always secretly loathed. A child, really. Thin to the point of scrawniness, she was lonely, hateful, and untrusting. She loved no one, and no one loved her. She always told herself, quietly, that she didn’t care. Was there something worth living for? There had to be. Life couldn’t be as pathetic as it seemed. Yet, it had to be. There wasn’t anything else.

Vin was both. She stood in two places, moving both bodies, being both girl and woman. She reached out with hesitant, uncertain hands—one each—and touched herself on the faces, one each.

Vin gasped, and it was gone. She felt a sudden rush of emotions, a sense of worthlessness and confusion. There were no chairs in the room, so she simply squatted to the ground, sitting with her back to the wall, knees pulled up, arms wrapped around them.

Kelsier walked over, squatting down to lay a hand on her shoulder. “It’s all right.”

“What was that?” she whispered.

“Gold and atium are complements, like the other metal pairs,” Kelsier said. “Atium lets you see, marginally, into the future. Gold works in a similar way, but it lets you see into the past. Or, at least, it gives you a glimpse of another version of yourself, had things been different in the past.”

Vin shivered. The experience of being both people at once, of seeing herself twice over, had been disturbingly eerie. Her body still shook, and her mind didn’t feel…right anymore.

Fortunately, the sensation seemed to be fading. “Remind me to listen to you in the future,” she said. “Or, at least, when you talk about Allomancy.”

Kelsier chuckled. “I tried to put it out of your mind for as long as possible. But, you had to try it sometime. You’ll get over it.”

Vin nodded. “It’s… almost gone already. But, it wasn’t just a vision, Kelsier. It was real. I could touch her, the other me.”

“It may feel that way,” Kelsier said. “But she wasn’t here— I couldn’t see her, at least. It’s an hallucination.”

“Atium visions aren’t just hallucinations,” Vin said. “The shadows really do show what people will do.”

“True,” Kelsier said. “I don’t know. Gold is strange, Vin. I don’t think anybody understands it. My trainer, Gemmel, said that a gold shadow was a person who didn’t exist—but could have. A person you might have become, had you not made certain choices. Of course, Gemmel was a bit screwy, so I’m not sure how much I’d believe of what he said.”



Vin nodded. However, it was unlikely that she’d ?nd out more about gold anytime soon. She didn’t intend to ever burn it again, if she could help it. She continued to sit, letting her emotions recover for a while, and Kelsier moved back over by the window. Eventually, he perked up.

“He’s here?” Vin asked, crawling to her feet.

Kelsier nodded. “You want to stay here and rest some more?”